Generally, burner assemblies used for reduce NOx emissions are premix burners that are fired directly towards the inlets of a heat exchanger. Usually the use of premix burners requires separate ignition and flame sensing for each burner within the assembly. Moreover, to provide sufficient capacity, the surface area facing the cell panel for non-inward fired premix burners needs to be significantly larger than the inlets of the heat exchanger. As a result, the surface temperature of the cell panel is increased significantly during operation; thus, leading to potential early failures of the heat exchanger. There is therefore a need for a burner assembly that reduces the surface temperature of the cell panel.